Steam street-car



3 Sheets-Sheet 1.

W. E. WILOOX.

STEAM STREET OAR.

(No Model.)

No. 391,350. Patented Oct. 16, 1888.

M busses,

N PETERS, Phom-Lnm n nar. Wabhmgmn. 0.1L

(No Model.) 3 Sheets-Sheet 2.

W. E. WILOOX.

STEAM STREET OAR.

N0. 391,350. Patented Oct. 16, 1888.

NB Model.)

3 Sheets-Sheet 3. W. E. WILOOX.

STEAM STREET GAR.

b o0 n m W w W O M d e .T...

w m P fiw 5 0O w m w UNITED STATES PATENT OFFICE.

\VILLIAM E. WVILCOX, OF COLLAMER, ASSIGNOR OF ONE-HALF TO B. MOHR- MAN, PATRICK DUNLANEY, FRED VVENHAM, AND \VILLIAM PITTS, OF

CLEVELAND, OHIO.

STEAM STREET CAR.

SPECIFICATION forming part of Letters Patent No. 391,350, dated October 16, 1888.

Application filed May 5, 1888. Serial No. 272,999. (No model.)

To aZZ whom it may concern.-

7 Be it known that I, XVILLIAM E. VVILcox, a citizen of the United States, residing at Collamer, in the county of Ouyahoga and State of Ohio, have invented certain new and useful Improvements in Steam Street-Oars; and I do hereby declare that the following is a full, clear, and exact description of the invention, which will enable others skilled in the art to which it appertaius to make and use the same.

My invention relates to improvements in steam street-cars; and it consists in the construction and combination of parts, hereinafter described, and particularly pointed out in the r claims.

In the acccompanying drawings, Figure 1 is a side elevation of one side of a car containing my improvements. Fig. 2 is a longitudinal section through the center and looking from the opposite side of the car. Fig. 3 is a plan view of the mechanism with the body of the ear removed.

I am aware that the application of steam in the propulsion of street-cars is not broadly new. Numerous attempts in this direction have been made from time to time; but certain difficulties in the adaptation have always arisen, and these have been so grave and considerable that they have come by many to be regarded as insurmountable. Prominent among these difficulties has been the control of the exhaust-steam, the puffing of which from the exhaust-pipe was noisy and apt to frighten horses. This was sought to be overcome by running the steam through a condenser; but the condensation was only partial, and a heavy cloud of steam would still be discharged from the exhaust, so that the original objection was only modified, but not remedied. Other ob- 4o jections existed, and altogether they have been of such a material nature that, cheap and effective as steam-power is and adapted to this service, yet for these several reasons it has been rejected as impracticable. It is the pur- 5 pose of the improvements I have made to overcome these objections, and they are overcome, as I believe, in the mechanism herein described.

The construction shown in the drawings is adapted to the common car at present in use and drawn by horses. To the axles of a car of this kind I attach a rectangular frame, A, having two longitudinal bars 2, swung on the axles with anti-friction bearings and braced laterally by the cross-bars 3. Two supple- 5 5 mental side bars, 4, parallel with the bars 2, are attached to the extremities of the crossbars, and these bars, together forming frame A, serve as a support for the engines and the mechanism immediately connected therewith. 50

Two engines, B B, capable, say, of ten to fifteen horse power, and greater, if needed, are attached to the parallel bars 2 4: near one axle and deliver their stroke to a common driveshaft, 0, supported transversely on frame A, near the other axle. By locating the engines and the drive mechanism on a frame resting alone on the axles I avoid the rocking and swinging movement they would have if attached to the body of the car, and I bring the engines into the position nearest their work and where the power can be directly delivered to the axles.

The drive shaft 0 carries two sprocketwheels, 5, near its center, and these wheels 7 connect by chains 6 with sprocket-wheels of greater diameter on the respective axles. The sprocket-wheels and chains make a noiseless movement, as well as operating positively on the axles, and the traction is increased by ap- 8o plying the power to both axles instead of one.

D represents aboiler, located in this instance in one of the platforms of the car and at one side thereof, so as not to obstruct entrance to the car through the door, the platform being 8 cut away so as to allow the ash-pit and, say, part of the fire-box to extend below its level,

though sufficiently high above the road-bed not to operate as an obstruction. Radiation of heat and injury to the wood-work are prevented by using felting or covering of nonconducting material, and if the appearance of the boiler is objectionable it can be inclosed by suitable casing. There is nothing specially new about the construction, except as it is modified to adapt it to this particular, which will appear in this description. Any kind of fuel may be used that will not produce an offensive amount of smoke. Coke or hard coal are therefore preferred. The usual injector, 8. water-gage 9, and other attachments are provided.

Steam is supplied to the engines through pipes 10 and 11, the latter being a crosspipe connecting with the heads of the engine-cylinders. The steam is exhausted through flexible tubes 12 into the corresponding ends of long cylindrical condensers 13, attached to the bottom of the car on either side just within the wheels. One engine exhausts into each cylinder. These cylinders are filled, say,with tangled wire, as shown at 14., Fig. 3, or with scraps of metal or other material that will offer resistance to the passage of the steam and afford large condensing-surface. The length of these cylinders thus filled aloneis sufficient to eliminate the puff of the exhaust. Leaving the cylinders, the remaining steam passes 'into the cross-pipe, and from this pipe it may be given either or both directions indicated in pipes 16 and 17. Pipes 16 have elbows 18, coupling them with the cross-pipe 15, and by which they are raised so as to run beneath the seats in the car, whereby they are made to serve for heating the car in winter or when needed. Valves 19 control the flow of steam to these heating-pipes. The pipes 17 extend to the opposite end of the car from which they take steam, and there are brought together through a cross-pipe, 20, while the pipes 16 are connected by a cross-pipe, 21, and the two sets of pipes 16 and 17 are discharged into a common elbow and pipe, 22. From this elbow the pipe 23 runs back into the water-tank 24, where it is c0iled,'so as to expose as large a condensing-surface as possible to the water. The same pipe extends thence along the bottom of the car, with two or more elbows, to the outside of the boiler. Here whatever steam there is remaining has two channels of escape provided, either or both of which may be opened. One leads through pipe 26 to the smoke-stack, and the other through pipe 27 to the ash-pit, whence it is drawn into the furnace, and, by being superheated, has its organic gases disengaged and adds to the fuel of the fire. Two valves, 28 and 29, Fig. 1, control the flow of the steam through these pipes. Both may be open or one alone closed. By this system of controlling the exhaust-steam, leading it first through the long condensing tubes or cylinders, with their vast surface exposure of metal inside, and then through the other exposed pipes to and through the coils in the water-tank, I am enabled to so completely condense the steam that none of consequence remains when it reaches the boiler.

The tank 24 may have the water replenished or renewed at the end of each trip, so as to make it more effective in condensing the steam. This tank is located out of theway beneath. the platform, and of a size to carry all the water needed for a return-trip of usual such as to adapt them to any ordinary car now in use, and places the parts so well out of So the way that the boiler itself remains as the only unusual obstruction.

The frame A lies beneath the car-axles so as to provide room for the engines and mechanism between the frame and floor of the car.

The pipes 12 are made flexible,so as to adapt them to the vibrations and up-and-down movement of the car-body in relation to the engines, which are supported directly upon the axles.

It should have been mentioned that each of 0 the pipes 17 has a short pipe leading directly into the exhaust-pipe near the boiler, the pipe 34 extending across to pipe 23, and the pipe 23 leading to the exhaust outside the vertical pipe 26, but in such relation that the steam may go into the fire-pit or directly into the smoke-stack.

Having thus described my invention, what I claim as new, and desire to secure by Letters Patent, isp 1. In a street car propelled by steam, a frame supported exclusively upon the axles of the car and carrying the engines and drive mechanism, in combination with condensingtubes arranged along the bottom of the car, flexible exhaust-tubes between said tubes and the engines, a water-tank on the rear of the car, and pipes leading from the condensingtubes through said tank and pipes connecting said tank with the boiler, substantially as set forth.

2. In a streetcar, a pair of engines and an independent frame attached to the axles for supporting the engines, in combination with a car-body having the condensing-cylinders arranged along its sides at the bottom, a watertank beneath one end of the car, and pipes for the exhaust extending from the condensers through the water -tank and thence to the boiler, with a boiler at the end opposite the tank, substantially as set forth.

3. In a streetcar, a water-tank at one end under the platform and condensing-cylinders along the bottom of the car, in combination with the steam-engines, flexible tubes leading from the engines to the condensers, and exhaust-pipes leading from the. condensers through the water-tank and to the boiler, substantially as set forth.

4. In a street-car, condensing-cylinders at- ICC tached to the bottom of the car, in coinbina- 6. In a streetcar propelled by steam, apair tion with pipes leading from said condensers of condensing=cylinders filled with tangled 15 beneath the seats of the car and thence through wire, or its equivalent as a condensing matecoils in a water-tank, to further condense the rial, a water-tank, pipes leading from the con- 5 steam, substantially as set forth. densers t0 the water-tank and into coiled pipe 5. In a street-oar, condensing cylinders therein, and a pipe leading thence to the along the bottom of the car on either side and boiler, substantially as set forth.

attached thereto, engines supported independently of the body on the car-axles, and flexi- 'WILLIAM E. VVILCOX.

1o bleconnection between the cylinders and the J engines, through which the steam is exhausted, \Vitnesses:

with pipes leading from said cylinders to the H. T. FISHER,

boiler, substantially as set forth. I J. L. COREY. 

